Fake DPD delivery message delivers smoke loader malware

A slightly interesting and at first puzzling malware scam this morning. When I received the email ( it was uploaded via our submissions system) I couldn’t work out what was happening. The link in the email went to a site, which eventually redirected to a fake DPD site, where pressing the appropriate button sent me to the genuine DPD site and no malware was downloaded or credentials asked for.

After a bit of digging around the source code of the fake DPD site I discovered what had happened. Either We were too quick to press the get your calling card button, or there was a DNS look up failure or other internet connection problem to the malware site so it failed and just sent you to the genuine DPD site. It now works properly and after the save or open word doc message comes on screen, the pop up appears asking you to enter post code & diverts you to the genuine DPD site occurs.

It should be noted the word doc pops up a fake error message saying “Error 19874 You must have Office Professional edition to read this content”. The first time I saw that a few weeks ago, it caught me out and I honestly thought the criminals had found a way to only deliver malware to certain editions of Microsoft Office.

Fake Word Message

So chain of infection is:

Link in email to http://www.aproffluso.org/analyticseistqks/redirect/c7232d8416403ce327f75016ad11f1f6-id-enuucmaam-to-parcel-online ( very slow to respond & most people will give up ) eventually redirects to https://www.dpd-package-online.com/awaiting_package/DAeZifg3pagFkdmBpT4kv/ where pop up delivers the word doc.

The direct download link is https://www.dpd-package-online.com/awaiting_package/DAeZifg3pagFkdmBpT4kv/download-receipt.php?time=1521198416 ( you don’t need the time bit ) which connects to and downloads https://wtrljmpg3gzlg.bid/parcel-receipt-GB8745B.doc ( this is what was timing out or not responding to DNS lookups initially, until I used a HTTP lookup & cached the lookup on my computer) VirusTotal | Anyrun | Hybrid Analysis |

I haven’t yet found what payload smoke is delivering today with this very involved malware scam. Smoke is Very IP aware and will only deliver the appropriate payload to the specific IP range & computer OS type the criminals have intended it for. Some IPs get one payload, others get something completely different. Known research IP numbers, Antivirus companies, Sandboxes and Tor users frequently get a 404 & nothing downloaded.

Update: another initial link in other emails involved in this malware distribution campaign email, before being redirected is is to http://www.duckimports.com/analyticstpkaiabn/redirect/79cb497b0769ee75bd0e4b5598dd1263-id-bklptn-to-parcel-online with the email coming from DPD Alert <noreply-bounce-288EC@duckimports.com>

An email with the subject of Your Missed Delivery coming from DPD Collection <noreply-bounce-1FE81@aproffluso.org>

They are using email addresses and subjects that will scare or entice a user to read the email and open the attachment. A very high proportion are being targeted at small and medium size businesses, with the hope of getting a better response than they do from consumers.

Remember many email clients, especially on a mobile phone or tablet, only show the Name in the From: and not the bit in <domain.com >. That is why these scams and phishes work so well.

DPD has not been hacked or had their email or other servers compromised. They are not sending the emails to you. They are just innocent victims in exactly the same way as every recipient of these emails.

The email looks like:

From: DPD Collection <noreply-bounce-1FE81@aproffluso.org>

Date: Fri 16/03/2018 02:05

Subject: Your Missed Delivery

Body content:

Your order was due for delivery on March 15, 2018

On the morning of March 15, 2018 we attempted to deliver your parcel. Unfortunately we were unable to complete the delivery as no one was available to sign for your parcel. Please ensure that someone is available to sign for your delivery
Your parcel is now safely at our depot. You can choose to pick up your parcel at your local depot or rearrange delivery.
If choose the redelivery option of your item and you’ll be out, it’s not a problem: you have a range of ‘in-flight’ options such as changing your delivery date, collecting from your nearest DPD Pickup Shop, asking us to deliver to your preferred neighbour or arranging to have your order delivered to a safe place at your address. Just click below to choose:

Find My Parcel

Thank you for choosing DPD.

Screenshot:

Fake DPD delivery email

Fake DPD site

All the alleged senders, companies, names of employees, phone numbers, amounts, reference numbers etc. mentioned in the emails are all innocent and are just picked at random. Some of these companies will exist and some won’t. Don’t try to respond by phone or email, all you will do is end up with an innocent person or company who have had their details spoofed and picked at random from a long list that the bad guys have previously found. The bad guys choose companies, Government departments and other organisations with subjects that are designed to entice you or alarm you into blindly opening the attachment or clicking the link in the email to see what is happening.

This email attachment contains what appears to be a genuine word doc or Excel XLS spreadsheet with either a macro script or an embedded OLE object that when run will infect you.

Modern versions of Microsoft office, that is Office 2010, 2013, 2016 and Office 365 should be automatically set to higher security to protect you.

By default protected view is enabled and macros are disabled, UNLESS you or your company have enabled them. If protected view mode is turned off and macros are enabled then opening this malicious word document will infect you, and simply previewing it in windows explorer or your email client might well be enough to infect you. Definitely DO NOT follow the advice they give to enable macros or enable editing to see the content.

Most of these malicious word documents either appear to be totally blank or look something like these images when opened in protected view mode, which should be the default in Office 2010, 2013, 2016 and 365. Some versions pretend to have a digital RSA key and say you need to enable editing and Macros to see the content. Do NOT enable Macros or editing under any circumstances.

What can be infected by this

At this time, these malicious macros only infect windows computers. They do not affect a Mac, IPhone, IPad, Blackberry, Windows phone or Android phone. The malicious word or excel file can open on any device with an office program installed, and potentially the macro will run on Windows or Mac or any other device with Microsoft Office installed. BUT the downloaded malware that the macro tries to download is windows specific, so will not harm, install or infect any other computer except a windows computer. You will not be infected if you do not have macros enabled in Excel or Word. These Macros do not run in “Office Online” Open Office, Libre Office, Word Perfect or any other office program that can read Word or Excel files.

Be very careful with email attachments. All of these emails use Social engineering tricks to persuade you to open the attachments that come with the email. It might be a simple message saying “look at this picture of me I took last night” that appears to come from a friend. It might be a scare ware message that will make you open the attachment to see what you are accused of doing. Frequently it is more targeted at somebody ( small companies etc.) who regularly receive PDF attachments or Word .doc attachments or any other common file that you use every day, for example an invoice addressed to sales@victimcompany.com.

The basic rule is NEVER open any attachment to an email, unless you are expecting it. Now that is very easy to say but quite hard to put into practice, because we all get emails with files attached to them. Our friends and family love to send us pictures of them doing silly things, or even cute pictures of the children or pets. Many of us routinely get Word, Excel or PowerPoint attachments in the course of work or from companies that we already have a relationship with.

Never just blindly click on the file in your email program. Always save the file to your downloads folder, so you can check it first. A lot of malicious files that are attached to emails will have a faked extension. That is the 3 letters at the end of the file name. Unfortunately windows by default hides the file extensions so you need to Set your folder options to “show known file types. Then when you unzip the zip file that is supposed to contain the pictures of “Sally’s dog catching a ball”, an invoice or receipt from some company for a product or service or receive a Word doc or Excel file report that work has supposedly sent you to finish working on at the weekend, you can easily see if it is a picture or document & not a malicious program. If you see JSor.EXE or .COM or .PIF or .SCR or .HTA .vbs, .wsf , .jse .jar at the end of the file name DO NOT click on it or try to open it, it will infect you.

With these malformed infected word, excel and other office documents that normally contain a vba macro virus, the vital thing is do not open any office document direct from your email client or the web. Always save the document to a safe location on your computer, normally your downloads folder or your documents folder and scan it with your antivirus. Many Antiviruses do not natively detect vba macro-viruses in real time protection and you need to enable document or office protection in the settings. Do not rely on your Anti-Virus to immediately detect the malware or malicious content. DO NOT enable editing mode or enable macros

All modern versions of word and other office programs, that is 2010, 2013, 2016 and 365, should open all Microsoft office documents that is word docs, excel files and PowerPoint etc that are downloaded from the web or received in an email automatically in “protected view” that stops any embedded malware or macros from being displayed and running. Make sure protected view is set in all office programs to protect you and your company from these sorts of attacks and do not over ride it to edit the document until you are 100% sure that it is a safe document. If the protected mode bar appears when opening the document DO NOT enable editing modeor enable macros the document will look blank or have a warning message, but will be safe.

Be aware that there are a lot of dodgy word docs spreading that WILL infect you with no action from you if you are still using an out dated or vulnerable version of word. This is a good reason to update your office programs to a recent version and stop using office 2003 and 2007. Many of us have continued to use older versions of word and other office programs, because they are convenient, have the functions and settings we are used to and have never seen a need to update to the latest super-duper version. The risks in using older version are now seriously starting to outweigh the convenience, benefits and cost of keeping an old version going.

I strongly urge you to update your office software to the latest version and stop putting yourself at risk, using old out of date software.